Plans to bring a former high school back into use to “nurture, educate and create new opportunities” for more than 100 children and young people with specialist needs closer to where they live are due to be reconsidered by councillors.
Proposals to create a 120‑place special school at the former Grammar School site on Grammar School Lane in Northallerton are set to be reviewed by members of North Yorkshire Council’s executive on Tuesday next week (February 17).
If approved, the scheme would see the unused site brought back into use. The building has been empty since 2021 when the secondary school pupils moved to the old Allertonshire School site in Brompton Road.
The meeting of the executive will consider pursuing the plans for the redevelopment of the school, which were first submitted to the Government in 2022.
At the time of the bid, the school was considered to be in the location for the council’s second most pressing need for special educational needs and disabilities provision.
The authority’s executive member for education, learning and skills, Cllr Annabel Wilkinson, said:
Investing in our children and young people and ensuring they are nurtured and educated while in school for the best start in life and new opportunities is a priority for us.
We are always working hard to ensure children with additional needs are supported in mainstream schools, close to their homes and communities and where their friends and brothers or sisters are.
We also acknowledge some children and young people need specialist provision due to more complex needs and that is what is in short supply.
The Department for Education (DfE) has offered a £5.6 million grant to North Yorkshire Council to help provide an alternative approach to personalised support for pupils with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND), including in mainstream schools.
However, accepting the funding would prevent the development of the proposed 120‑place special school at the former Grammar School Lane.
Council officers are therefore recommending that plans to renovate the building continue.
This proposal sits alongside other developments including a new secondary school in Harrogate for autistic students as well as the Government’s plans to build another specialist school in Osgodby, near Selby, for 100 children aged three to 19 with complex needs.
Latest data reveals the number of children and young people identified with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) and ECHPs in North Yorkshire has increased by more than 110 per cent since 2016. The number continues to rise, with more than 6,400 pupils now supported through an EHCP.
Meanwhile, the number of special school places in North Yorkshire has grown from 820 in 2017 to a planned 1,466 by September this year. This is an almost 80 per cent increase in less than nine years.
The Government is planning major reforms to the SEND system, aiming to address delays, poor outcomes, and unsustainable costs, with a new Schools White Paper expected soon.
The report can be viewed or downloaded as a PDF here: 260217 – Report – DfE Capital Proposal.pdf
